


It'll Be A Lonely Christmas Without You

by CopperCrane2



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9519101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCrane2/pseuds/CopperCrane2
Summary: Bucky’s not having a good day, and he’s gone and bought a Christmas tree to boot.Set just after the Brubaker run.Based much more on their comic versions than their MCU ones.Canon compliant.Written for the 2016 BuckyNat Secret Santa.Prompts were "It'll be a lonely christmas without you," and "Never really celebrated Christmas. I'm usually trying not to get killed."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [King_Queen_and_Ace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/King_Queen_and_Ace/gifts).



In some ways, Bucky being a product of a less successful version of the super-soldier serum made him luckier than Steve. He could get drunk, for one. It took _a lot_ to make it happen, but it was achievable. The buzz never lasted long enough, though… definitely not enough to get him to pass out completely (which was the ideal outcome at this point), but sufficient to at least see him through to a state of utter waste on his couch in nothing but boxers and a sleeveless undershirt.  

In direct contradiction to all his years of discipline training, of muscle building, of ballet (yeah, the Soviets had trained _all_ their elite spies in the art, Natasha hadn’t been special on that front, she’d just been _better_ at it than anyone else), he was flopped back on the sofa, _posture be fucking damned_ , his fifth bottle of vodka in his metal hand and one of the those A4 digital frames clasped in his right as it automatically transitioned, unnoticed by the apartment’s only occupant, through photograph after smiling photograph.

He was the quintessential picture of a broken-heart drowning in its own sorrow: his piercingly clear, icy eyes were overcast and glassy, his hair was unkempt, his face was dirtied with shadow so heavy it was practically a beard and his skin was a dehydrated wreck. His gaze, however… his gaze was intently focussed on the clichéd embodiment of holiday spirit twinkling prettily a few feet away from him. He smirked at the juxtaposition. Of all the unexpected things to have in his sparse, brick-and-glass apartment, James Buchanan Barnes was the current owner of a one-hundred-percent genuine (and unreasonably expensive) Christmas tree. It was bushy, it was bright and it battled admirably against the stench of potato-based ethanol for the right to infuse the air with its traditional scent of pine and joy.

He wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that he was mildly proud of his work. He’d done a decent job of the lights, but after he’d accidentally shattered a delicate glass bauble with his bare foot (and then picked out the multitude of very breakable slivers from his sole with tweezers) he’d given up decorating and just thrown a ton of tinsel all over the damn thing. It wasn’t the greatest tree he’d ever seen, but it wasn’t awful considering the minimal effort he’d applied in setting it up. The only glaringly obvious absence was the tree topper: an angel which, fittingly for his current situation and mood, rested on the floor just out of his reach, her eyes downcast and thus blinding her to his presence. “Metaphor’s kinda on the nose, isn’t it?” he asked her before deciding he sounded entirely too sober and took a hefty swig of the Russian cure-all (although technically this particular bottle was Polish, and pricier than the others, so it should have really been drunk first when he would’ve been better able to appreciate it. _Then again,_ he thought, _hindsight’s always been, and continues to be, a giant bitch)_.

In the silence of the apartment he could hear everything, despite (or maybe because of) the alcohol coursing through his body. He didn’t even have to try. Training, serum or a little of both, he wasn’t sure, not that he particularly cared… it wasn’t super-hearing (not like the gifts some of the others he knew possessed), it was more a hyper-awareness of himself and his surroundings. As a result the message he was receiving from his environment was, unfortunately for him, painfully loud and coldly clear: he was entirely _alone_. The littlest of sounds echoed out into the quiet, driving the point deep into his heart, like a blade slipping under the ribcage, burying itself angrily into giving flesh: the rhythmic and slow tick, tick, ticking of the analogue wall clock (he couldn’t bring himself to go entirely digital), the tiny, intermittent buzzing of the tree-lights, evidence of a loose connection in one of the strands (he’d have to fix that at some point), his own unusually heavy breathing, the clink of metal against glass as his grip tightened on the neck of the bottle, the clack of said glass against his teeth as he opened his mouth and vainly hoped the fire spilling into his throat would throw him into a pit of blissful oblivion… and the piercing shrill of his email notification.

He looked over to the far side of his foot rest (referred to normally as a coffee table) and glared at the offending piece of technology. “Not now, Steve ( _who else would it be today?_ ). Fuck off.” He regretted the venom of his comment immediately (of course he did) and mentally apologised to his best friend as he sat up to reach for the phone.

~*~

_One Year Ago_

“This is going to take at least three weeks to heal.”

As James paused to allow the metal doors to slide open, Natasha looked up from her place in the wheelchair. “I was present at the infirmary,” she stated, her entire left leg cast and strapped up to the extended leg prop.

“That’s a spiral fracture to your femur, it’s not a sprained wrist.” He guided her smoothly into the elevator and  pushed the button for the second floor basement. Alone as they descended, he continued their conversation. “Ordinary people have to be operated on for something like that, you know.”

“Again, I feel I should remind you that I was there,” she said as the corner of her ruby mouth quirked up in amusement, “looking at the x-ray of _my_ leg, that the doctor was showing _me_ , James.”

He placed his real hand onto her shoulder and traced it along the gentle slope in affection. “I’m just saying, spending that time recovering at my place makes more sense.”

“I have a bed at home, too,” she countered, “I also have a phone and a laptop with wifi. I’ve recovered perfectly fine from more serious injuries in worse conditions.”

“Just because you spent a week hiding out in a Somalian cave once with a broken arm and collarbone doesn’t mean you have to do that all the time.” The elevator arrived at its destination and slid open its doors. “You’re allowed to take your time to recover, and in a nice environment, too.”

“I’d actually been talking about the gut shot I took in São Paulo.”

He frowned, unable to recall the event. “When did that happen?”

“When I was sabotaging the primary operations of the international criminal commonly known as the ‘Favela Saint’.” There was no hiding the hint of pride in her voice as he wheeled her along the row of cars, heading towards a black SUV.

“The war lord?” he asked, mildly surprised. “That massacre was you?”  

“It was originally supposed to be cleaner,” she admitted, “but things went south when they got to our man on the inside. Fortunately my improvised plan proved to be more effective than the original one. The only problem was I got caught up in the fray and took a hit to the abdomen.”

Being so intimately familiar with her body that he could practically recreate an exact replica of her from memory, he was completely certain that there wasn’t a single trace of that injury left on her. “The wonders of SHIELD medicine and super healing.” He opened the side door of the vehicle and picked her up carefully. “And don’t change the subject. Why don’t you want to stay at my place?”

Natasha didn’t answer until he’d placed her across the back seat and she’d shuffled into a more comfortable position. “I don’t want to impose,” she conceded, “and I know how to take care of myself.”

“It’s almost like you don’t want me around,” he said as he wheeled the empty chair into the back of the van.

She couldn’t see his face but she knew he was smiling by the sound of his voice. “You know that’s not true,” she said, not playing his game. He might have been joking, but she’d heard the hidden question underneath the fun: _do you need me to give you some space?_ “You could stay at my apartment with me,” she offered ( _No, I don’t, but thank you for asking_ ).

He stood at the side door of the van, giving himself an unobstructed view of her, and shook his head. “I know you, Nat. Being cooped up for almost a month is going to drive you crazy, and then add a big lump like me into the mix and you’re not going to feel comfortable in your own space… it’s not exactly a large apartment.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “You’re not planning on spending the entire time with me, are you?”

“Every single day, if you’ll have me.” He grinned and this time she did see it. “I got lucky. I don’t have another mission until the New Year.”

She didn’t believe that, not for a second. He’d been on his phone while her leg was being put into the cast, he must have been rearranging things then.

“I’m at your service, Ms Romanova,” he continued, “ready and willing to nurse you back to the pinnacle of health.”

It drew a reluctant smile from her as he shut the door of the van.  “I don’t need you to do that for me,” she said once he’d settled into the driver’s seat.

“You don’t need anything from me, Nat, that’s why you’re so amazing.” He twisted around to face her. “Look, I get it. For people like us, spending three weeks together alone, with nothing else to do, is a lot of intimate time. That’s why it’ll be easier at my place, where there’s two bedrooms.” He watched her for a reaction at his attempt at humour but when she gave none he sighed. “I just want you to get well. If you’re most comfortable staying at your own apartment, then I’ll take you there. If you need some time alone, I understand that to-”

Natasha scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said, interrupting, “I get it. I’ll come to your dumb Christmas sleepover.” He grinned at her like a kid with a present, and her heart beat just a little faster at the thought that she could make him so happy. “We need to stop at my apartment first, though. I have to pick up a few things.”

“Sure, anything.” He pressed the ignition button and the van revved to life.

“You’re wrong, by the way,” she said as he reached for his seatbelt.

“About what?”

“I do need you, James.” His eyes flew to the rearview mirror and caught her waiting ones easily. “More than you know.”

He swallowed away the sudden dryness in his throat while he studied her reflection. They sat watching each other in silence for a long second, letting the weight of her words sink in, and then he smiled, unabashedly. “Onwards to _Casa del Bucky_ , then.”

~*~

He was in awe. Truly he was. How she managed to do it, he had no idea, but Natasha Romanoff was sitting on his couch with her entire left leg casted up to the thigh (although, SHIELD being SHIELD, the cast was sleek, dark and high-tech) and propped up on the coffee table, cushioned by a myriad of pillows (he hadn’t been aware of even owning that many). She was sporting a thin, hunter-green t-shirt, a pair of black bikini briefs and literally nothing else. All adornments and makeup had been removed, her hair was tied back in a low ponytail (as was her way when she wasn’t working), and yet… _and yet_ , doped up on cocodamol, half dressed in an old shirt and trapped by 3D-printed plastic as she was laying back on his couch, legs splayed, eating from a bag of chocolate covered pretzel sticks whilst flicking through random Christmas movies, she was still _somehow_ the most sublime creature he had ever seen. It was like she was physically incapable of not being graceful. As if it was part of her very nature. For lack of a better way to describe it, Bucky thought she was fucking _enchanting_.  

When she caught him staring she grinned and then placed a pretzel in between her teeth, tilting her head back and offering it to him. He leaned down into the couch, using the armrest as support for his weight, and bit the stick, pulling it into his mouth and crunching it. “These are pretty good,” he realised.

“I know,” she said, picking out another one and feeding it to him. “That’s why I had you get them from the store.” She proffered him a third one, but when he moved to bite it she pulled it back and kissed him instead. He didn’t mind the trade.

As he snaked his metal hand along her jaw, threading his fingers through her hair, he vaguely heard her dropping the pretzel bag. Before he could deepen the kiss, however, she pulled away, cutting him off from the source of the heat building within him and denying him the satisfaction of a full embrace. When he opened his eyes again, he found her holding a thin box wrapped in green paper. “Merry Christmas, James,” she said softly.

He blinked in surprise, his lust taking an instant back seat in favour of confusion. “I didn’t think you celebrated it,” was all he could think to say. He lowered himself onto the couch, careful not to touch her leg.

“No,” she replied, “but you used to.” She pushed the gift gently into his hands. “Open it, it’s Christmas Eve, after all.”

Touched by her kindness, he looked down at it and then up at her. “But I didn’t get you anything.”

Mirth danced across her features as she leaned down and lifted her bag of chocolate pretzels from the floor. “You got me these,” she said, shaking it.

His right hand rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. “You’re making me feel like even more of a heel.”

“I’m pretty sure they stopped using that word back in the nineteen fifties,” she teased.

“Oh,” he said, dropping his hand and feigning offence, “is that a dig at my age, Ms Romanova, great spy of the early _Cold War_?”

“No, Mr Barnes, it was a dig at your archaic use of slang,” she countered, sitting back and popping another pretzel into her mouth. “I’m practically the same age as you and Steve and I don’t sound like an old lady.”

“You do in Russian.”

Her hand froze in the bag. “ _What?_ ”

“You sound like a babushka,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

She gasped. “I do not.”

“You do.”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” she said, her voice hardening to give her a more commanding tone, “you will retract that statement immediately.”

Others might have cowered (and if he hadn’t been having so much fun, he might have, too). “I will not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I have a mastery of nine languages, a proficient grasp of another eleven and conversational fluency of a further four, with _particular_ eloquence in my mother tongue.”

His eyes flicked down to her lips. “There’s no denying what a gift your mouth is.”

“I’m being serious, James.”

“So am I,” he said, barely able to contain his laughter.

For a moment she said nothing as she assessed the situation. “Hand back the present.”

He shook his head once. “It’s too late, you’ve already given it to me.”

“James-”

“Alright, I was kidding,” he conceded.

She didn’t believe him. “You weren’t.”

“I wasn’t,” he confirmed. And grinned again.

She folded her arms and huffed lightly. “Do I really sound like an old woman in Russian?”

He placed the gift on the coffee table and slid his metal arm along her right, uninjured leg. “It’s not that bad,” he admitted, his humour dying down in favour of honesty. “When you’re being formal it isn’t noticeable, but you haven’t adapted it to the change in times as much as you have with other languages.” He stole her bag of pretzels away from her and ate one. “I suppose you didn’t consciously acknowledge the need to do so in the same way you did for the others, since you’re already so comfortable speaking it.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, figuring he’d had a point. “Everything I read in Russian is pretty high-brow or technical, and when I’m over there I’m usually speaking with aged dignitaries. I haven’t had cause to speak it informally for a while, not unless I’m dealing with scumbags… and I haven’t exactly wanted to emulate how _they_ speak,” she sighed before coming to a reluctant conclusion. “I’ll have to rectify this.”

Bucky had to physically stop himself from groaning with lust. She was killing him softly, that was for sure.  He’d pointed out a _sensitive_ and _personal_ chink in her otherwise impenetrable armour and instead of resenting him for it, she’d assessed what he’d said and acknowledged her weakness. _God,_ he thought, _she even handles her_ flaws _with_ _grace and dignity._ He cleared his throat and shifted in his sitting position. “If you want practice there are some terrible Russian TV shows which are supposed to be pretty compelling,” he suggested, “and some pretty interesting movies.”

Her eyebrows lifted in mild surprise. “When did you find the time to watch all of those?”

“I haven’t, yet. I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity.”

“Well, we have another two weeks to go before I’m out of this cast.” She plucked the bag of pretzels from his hands, her mouth quirked up at the corner. “Now open your gift and try not to insult me again while you do it.”

He rolled his eyes and pretended to be exasperated. “I said you _sound_ like a babushka, not that you _were_ -”

“Digging a bigger hole, James,” she said, daring him to finish his sentence.

He leaned in, a tender smile on his lips, and kissed her gently. “I take it all back,” he apologised.

She fed him another pretzel and then handed him his gift from the table. “< _What am I going to do with you, my darling?_ >” she asked in Russian.

He looked up at her as he peeled open the green paper. “ _< I can think of all kinds of things,>_” he replied as he pulled away the last of the wrapping. “Is this what I think it is?”

The box was cardboard - a glossy white - and printed on it was an image of the gift it cradled inside: a photo frame connected to a power plug, complete with a generic picture of a happy family with a dog.

“Yeah, I got the idea from Tony’s office. All your photos in one frame,” she said. “Do you like it?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “This is really thoughtful, Nat. Thank you.”

Pleased to see that he approved of her choice, she smiled back. “That’s not the real gift, though.” She took the box from him and placed it cautiously on her lap, leaning it more on her right leg than on the cast.

“No?” 

“No.” She pulled out a memory stick and showed it to him. “This is.”

His dark eyebrows creased in curiosity as he took it from her. “What’s on it?” he asked. “Photographs?”

She nodded. “As many as I could find with you in them, or with people connected to you. From your past, from your present. Anything I could get my hands on. There’s over four hundred of them on there.”

 _Four hundred?_ “Natasha…” he breathed. “This is…” he looked at her in wonder. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

She shrugged a supple shoulder, her eyes affectionate. “Happiness in a single drive. Easy to take with you if you ever have to make a quick escape.”

He laughed lightly, observing the stick for a second before looking back at her. “This is awfully sentimental,” he said.

“You love it.” She smirked, knowing without a doubt it was true.

“I do,” he admitted without hesitation, “almost as much as I love you.”

She leaned in, inviting him to meet her halfway. “Then prove it, you sap.”

The kiss was more heated than their last and Natasha made the mistake of moving far too much, too quickly. A jolt of pain raced up her thigh bone and left a deep, pounding ache in its wake. She hissed and he pulled away immediately.

“Does your leg hurt?” he asked as he put the memory stick back into the box and moved it to the floor, out of the way.

“A little, yes.”

“Do you want a pain killer?”

“Please,” she said, nodding.

He got up from the couch and fetched a glass from the kitchen area. With his space now free, she readjusted herself, wincing slightly as she shifted. _Home Alone_ was currently showing on his flat screen and she did her best to concentrate on it in order to distract herself from the pain. One of the criminals was breaking into a house, barefoot for some reason, and stepped on some glass baubles.

“Maybe next year we can put up a tree,” she suggested once he’d returned with the water and pills. “One would do nicely over there.”

His gaze followed her finger to a spot by the large window. “That’s an unusually festive suggestion, coming from you.”

She lifted her right leg and pulled her knee back slowly to let him slot into the space on the couch.

“You don’t like the idea?” she asked as she lowered her calf onto his lap once he’d sat down.

“I don’t mind it.” He let his metal hand slide absently along her shin. “But we don’t have to have one if it’s just for me. Besides, we live in New York, there’s a pretty impressive one in Rockefeller Center if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yeah, but it would be nice to have one of my own. Just once, you know? To see if it’s worth the effort.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“And if it is, it might be a good tradition to start together.”

The implication of her suggestion was not lost on him. With their lives the way they were - fluctuating with the slow, unstoppable grind of time, with the fear of death lurking behind any corner they turned - tradition was not ordinarily a luxury they could afford to have. They would never be a family, not in the nuclear two and half kids and white picket-fence kind of way (not that that was what either of them wanted), but they were _something_ , and it was deep, it was special. It was worth holding onto. It was worth building on. “I’d like that.”

“So we’re agreed, then. Next year, you’re getting a tree.”

“Looks that way.” He was enjoying the fact that she seemed so happy about it. “You’ve started decorating it in your head already, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She sipped at the glass of water still in her hand. “My living space is made up of a web of safe houses in various, secret locations. I don’t get much of a chance to try my hand at decor.”

“That’s a pity. I bet you’d be good at it. You have excellent taste.”

“Flatterer.” She nudged him lightly with her toe. “When you were young, what did you use to top your trees with?”

He thought about it for a second before answering. “I don’t remember what they used to use in the orphanage, but in the army camp,” a smile spread slowly across his lips as he retrieved the memory, “we used to drink a bottle of whatever we had at the time and shove it on upside down.”

“An empty bottle of booze? Really?” 

“The alternative was a rusty tin can.”

“Hmm,” Natasha said, “I didn’t have a lot to celebrate in my youth, but that even sounds depressing to me.”

He laughed. “It wasn’t that bad. Some of the G.I.s would get creative and turn a leaflet into paper wings for the bottle. And there was always a lot of food for Christmas dinner.”

“What about when you were a little boy, with your sister?”

“For that tree, mom used to put an angel on top.”

“So let’s do that.”

“No star for the Russian, huh?” He cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you believed in religion.”

“I can’t afford to,” she said in a low voice and then drained her glass of water before placing it on the floor, “not in my line of work, anyway.”

Bucky rubbed delicately at her ankle. “I believe in angels,” he said.

She look up at him and saw his expression. She debated answering him, knowing what he was setting her up for. She did it, anyway. “Oh?” she asked, playing ignorant.

“Yeah, and I’m staring at one right now.”

She let her head drop onto the back of the sofa. “Oh my _God_ , James.”

He was laughing again. “Too much, huh?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. She reached for the pillow behind her back and tossed it lightly at his chest. “That one was ridiculous.”

He caught it easily and narrowed his eyes with mischief. “Will it get me to second base, at least?” he asked.

Her pulse began to quicken at the thought. “Maybe even third,” she answered, “if you call and order the platter special from _Ichiban’s Sushi_.”

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and drew up the restaurant’s website. “I’m here to serve, Ms Romanova,” he said as he began filling out the online order form. When he was done he tossed it behind him and grinned.

“That was fast.”

“They guarantee delivery in thirty minutes,” he explained, “that doesn’t give us a lot of time.”

She nodded, agreeing. “Then we’d better hurry.”

“What’s more convenient for you? We could do it right here on the couch, or I could whisk you off to the bedroom.”

“Do I look like a fairy princess to you?”

“No,” he said, his grin turning feral as his gaze dropped to the parting between her bare thighs, “you don’t.”

He wet his bottom lip with his tongue, watching as she slowly shifted her hips into a more accessible position. “Make me scream, James,” she said, “only watch the leg.”

“Yes ma’am,” he whispered. And he did.

~*~

He reached over and picked up the phone from the coffee table, entering his passcode with his real hand while he used the other to help him polish off the remains of the vodka. When he saw who the message was from, he tossed the empty bottle to the far side of the couch and sat up, giving the email his full concentration:  

 

 

> _Hi Barnes,_
> 
> _I found this polaroid behind one of my drawers while I was doing a clean out. I don’t know why I have this of you, I figured it might’ve been from a random dossier or something that I’d probably brought home at some point, but it’s not exactly standard SHIELD photography… Maybe it belonged to you or someone you know and it fell into my bag or something?_
> 
> _I didn’t want to throw it away, it seemed personal and it’s a nice picture of you so I thought you might want it back (if it’s yours). Have a Merry Christmas, Barnes, if you celebrate that sort of thing. And thanks for the save earlier this year. I owe you one._
> 
> _Natasha Romanoff_
> 
>  

Once he’d read the message he scrolled back up to the top and read it again, just to make sure he’d gotten every detail. Once he’d done _that_ , he opened the attachment and recognised the photograph immediately. It had been taken at a rooftop barbecue during a summer day with some of the other Avengers at the time. Clint had been messing around with an old polaroid camera of Logan’s (how he’d gotten it, he had no idea) and passed it onto Natasha while making some joke about the number of old people at the party.

He gripped the phone tighter in his hand, his heart aching at the memory.

She’d caught him with his metal arm outstretched as he’d tried to reach for her and the camera. The smile on his face was half-posing and half displeasure at having his picture taken (Natasha had said it was sexy), with his eyes hidden by aviators and his t-shirt discarded because of the heat. She’d been laughing a lot that afternoon (Jessica Drew had been in fine comedic form), prompting him to return the favour by taking a few candid shots of her on his phone. Those were locked away in a secure safe, along with everything else which had evidenced their relationship, although if he was patient enough, copies of them would have eventually flitted across the screen of the digital photo frame which currently lay next to the empty vodka bottle on the couch.

He heaved in a shaky breath as his emotions threatened to get the better of him. Tossing the phone over to the other discarded items, he reached around the couch and picked up his final, unopened bottle of vodka. He’d saved this one for last (a shitty, commercial brand - it was all they’d had in the supermarket) so he wouldn’t be able to taste it. He cracked the seal and downed three gulps before coming up for air.

But it didn’t help. _Of all days_ , he thought. Of all the days for her to make any form of contact it would, of course, be on the very day he was honouring his love for her by drunkenly decorating a Christmas tree. If that was fate trying to throw him a bone, it could go fuck itself.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his left hand while his right one’s loose grip dangled the bottle. His long hair surrounded his face, placing him in shadow and mercifully shielding his view from the garish representation of love and family sparkling before him.

His shoulders shook as the tears began to fall. One by one they spilled into tiny, unseen puddles at his feet. He’d survived worse pains than the one he was facing ( _some of the people he’d killed, even before his time as the Winter Soldier… so many innocent faces…_ ) but this one had been the cruelest. Every so often a memory of her would rear its beautiful head only to sting him with a venom as excruciating as the day he’d lost her. “ _Natalia…_ ” he said in a broken whisper. _She’s better off without me._

As thoughts of her assaulted him he gave up trying to reign in the tears, instead flooding the silence of his apartment with the sobs that wracked his body. He told himself that he would only give into the pain for a moment, that he'd allow himself a minute before he would take back control, but somehow in between that short space of time he ended up with his phone in his hands, and a message ready to send to her:

 

> _I love you imiss you so much im lost without you. Nothing feels the same nothingis the same. Youre my entire soul._
> 
>  

His thumb hovered over the word ‘send’ as he struggled to see sense through the fog of alcohol and longing. It was such an easy thing to do, to fall prey to that self-destructive temptation. It would do more damage than good. It would be selfish in every way, he knew that. But knowing did nothing to dampen the desires of the heart. She was gone, but she was also _right there_ and it was supposed to be enough just to know that she was alright. But it wasn’t. Fuck no, it wasn’t. Because she didn’t love him, and that left him utterly empty inside. As if someone had ripped out the very parts of him that had kept him alive.

His better conscience won in the end, like it was supposed to, like she would have expected of him (like Steve would have). He deleted the message. 

Cathartically, it seemed to break the spell (enough for him to take in a more sure breath than the one that had sent him spiralling downwards). _Time’s up,_ he told himself, _no more of this. She's better off without you._ His minute of self-pity was done.

He stood up, resigned to the reality of his situation, and stumbled his way to the bedroom, to sleep it all off.

~*~

His waking the next morning was not exactly a very pleasant affair. He’d left his phone in the living room and had no means to check the time, but given that he’d left his curtains open it was easy to see that the sun had yet to rise. He guessed that made it around six in the morning, which meant he’d gotten less than four hours of sleep. But it was Christmas Day, people had made plans with him in them and he wanted to visit Rebecca. So he got up (the hangover would die away quickly enough) and he walked out of the bedroom into the darkness of the rest of his open-plan apartment.

The sight of the tree, still blinking jovially, surprised him for a moment. The air was tinged with the smell of stale vodka, the empty bottles of which twinkled with multicoloured refraction of the Christmas lights. The sight was unexpectedly pretty, given the state he’d left the room in.

He set up his coffee machine, feeling his way in the dark, unwilling to switch on the ceiling lamps and ruin the view. While it percolated he retrieved his phone from the couch and, with a heavy sigh, he re-read Natasha’s email and began crafting a suitable response:

 

> _Hey Nat,_
> 
> _Yeah the photo’s mine. Someone took it while messing around with an old polaroid camera at a party. It must have gotten mixed up with some documents or something (or maybe you took it home on purpose? If so, I’m flattered). Could you keep it and give it to me the next time we meet? I kinda want it back since it’s one of the few decent photographs of me that exist out there. Of course I don’t know when that’ll next be, so you might have to keep it on your person for a while (which is not a thought I mind). I trust you to keep something like that safe for me until I can get it back._
> 
> _And in case you’re curious, I do celebrate Christmas, I even got a tree this year. A friend suggested I get one, she thought it would brighten the place up. She was right… sort of._
> 
> _You don’t owe me anything, Nat, you never have. Just know I’ll always be there for you, if you need it._
> 
> _Take care of yourself._
> 
> _Yours always,_
> 
> _James._
> 
>  

He put the phone down without sending it and started on making himself (a large) breakfast, turning on no more than the stove’s hood light. The pancakes, eggs and bacon took longer to make as a result, but as he sat himself on the dining table, facing the tree as it shone out, illuminating the entire apartment with its pretty, Christmas spirit, he decided it had been worth the extra effort. She would have loved it. It would have been a great tradition.

He smiled to himself as he shovelled a forkful of pancakes into his eager mouth (a hyped-up metabolism and a liquid dinner could drive a man to starvation), and thought about how the saying, “it’ll look better in the morning,” was kind of true. Maybe he’d needed to get it all out of his system. Bucky had his good days, but he had his bad, too, and they tended to build and climax in unhealthy bouts of self-loathing and heavy-drinking sessions. Yesterday had been the latter, but today… who knew?

He looked down at his phone again and evaluated his intended reply with a critical eye. “No,” he said, to no one in particular, “this is too personal.”  

With a clearer head and a full belly, he edited the message:

 

> _Hi Natasha,_
> 
> _Yeah the photo’s mine, thanks. It must have gotten mixed up with some documents or something. Could you keep it and give it to me next time we meet? I’d really appreciate that._
> 
> _Thanks for the Christmas wishes, I’d reciprocate but I have a feeling you don’t celebrate the holiday, so I’ll just wish you well for the New Year._
> 
> _There’s no need to thank me, you’re more than welcome. I’m always around if you need anything._
> 
> _Take care,_
> 
> _James._
> 
>  

Polite. Not too personal. Perfect.

His heart beat painfully in his chest, but he sent it anyway.

When he was done, he took his cup of coffee and walked over to the couch, analysing the tree as he approached. It definitely needed to be finished. “Alright then, you’re up, angel face. Make this look good.” He picked up the porcelain ornament and carefully placed her into position, adjusting her a few times to make sure she was securely set and facing the right direction.

When he finally took a step back to survey his work he found he was sufficiently satisfied - at least enough to get him through the rest of the day.

He raised his cup in a toast. “ _Merry Christmas, ‘Tasha,_ " he whispered. 

**Author's Note:**

> I know technically that Bucky isn't physically enhanced in the comics, but to me that opens way too many problems with his body's compatibility with his metal arm. I liked the solution the Russo Brothers came up with in CA: TWS - that Bucky received some lesser version of the serum, or at least something which at least allows his body to cope with having a metal arm and all the superhuman feats it can accomplish. 
> 
> I think that's the only non-comic compliant element to Bucky that I've incorporated into the fic... 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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